Dragging
Air fails
to fill my lungs.
I drag, as if on
a cigarette,
but can’t achieve
the hit
The Clock
Waking, I turn
3am glows fluorescently.
Time of the night rounds, my
wrist taken by a nurse,
noted in torchlight.
I was never sleeping.
Sometimes
I would close my eyes
feigning.
Other nights I knew my thirst
would be quenched
by the offer of the beaker, held
so that I could chase away
dust that had gathered, dry.
3am embossed my mind.
Common time for dying,
a crisis, running sound
of night staff.
Chrissie Morris Brady
